Dr. Bardelos chuckled, revealing vampire fangs. “I am a god, mixed with the strengths and abilities of many creatures. Including the strength of a werewolf.”
I swallowed, even more afraid than before. “You turned yourself into a monster?”
Dr. Bardelos growled. “A god.”
“Well, what do you want with me then?” I quickly asked. “You clearly have everything you want.”
Dr. Bardelos smiled. “No. There is always more to have. Including my Alexa.”
“So, you’ve been doing this just so you could turn yourself into…” I looked his massive naked figure up and down in disgust. Nothing was out of the ordinary besides his eyes, but underneath it all was a monster.
Dr. Bardelos leaned in. “My reasons run much deeper than this. Did Alexa not tell you anything about me?” He chuckled. “I didn’t just stumble upon her and dear sweet Esha, the woman who murdered my baby brother in cold blood.” He frowned. “I may not have come around Steven and the family since I started my work, but I still loved him, and Esha killed him. It was only fitting that I took her mate and forced her to be mine. Besides, Alexa deserved to be punished for her betrayal against my brother.” He growled. “You should have seen the way she left his body.”
I blinked away my tears, understanding the depth of Alexa’s fear now. “You forced her to be yours? You…you can’t force a vampire to mate you.” I swallowed. “She has to—to—”
“Love me?” he laughed. “We may not have bonded in soul, but her body belonged to me.”
A hot boiling anger began to simmer, just at the pit of my stomach. I had never seen memories of him assaulting Alexa in that manner, and never considered that he had because of that. She did well in keeping me from experiencing that form of her pain, but because of it, she was truly alone in her suffering.
“Alexa was in bad condition after that last fight. My soldiers should be picking her up now.”
No!
Something in me snapped and released all at once as I slammed my hand into the Doctor’s chest. Instead of freezing him, ice blasted from my palm and sent him flying into the wall with a crack, but it wasn’t enough. Ice barely even covered his chest.
Ignoring him as he stood, I flashed for the door, but was slammed into by a massive force and sent flying against the room, only when I landed against the wall, a hand wrapped around my throat and held me there.
Dr. Bardelos roared in my face, his black veins stretching right before he roughly yanked my head to the side and jammed his teeth into my throat.
My eyes instantly watered and my vision began to blur. His venom was nothing like Alexa’s, slowly and painfully weakening me. I screamed out in pain and in hope that someone would come help. I may have trained for weeks, but I was no match for him. I wasn’t even sure if Alexa was or if she even knew what he really was.
When my vision became bad enough, my head began to droop, but that wasn’t enough for him. Pulling away, Dr. Bardelos held me up by my throat and slammed me so hard against the wall that I went crashing through it.
The air had completely left my lungs, and I could barely see, but I was still alert and slowly rolling over to my side to get to my feet. Before I could roll all the way over though, Dr. Bardelos kicked me back onto my back and pressed his foot onto my throat.
Struggling under his weight, I grabbed his foot and tried to freeze it, but the affects weren’t working on him and my ice was barely forming.
He chuckled. “I believe I am absorbing it.”
When the blurry figure of him began to form black dots, I felt my body finally giving out, but the moment right before I lost consciousness, the house began to rumble as if there were some kind of earthquake.
I knew exactly who it was that was causing this, but I was surprised that she could. This house was solid, and Alexa was breaking it down.
Dr. Bardelos removed his foot and sniffed the air, then he smiled. “My Alexa.”
The glass in the windows burst, the floor and walls began to crack, wood creaked and splintered, and the wind blew with such force that I had to shield my face from flying debris.
Dr. Bardelos faced the open doorway, preparing himself for Alexa’s appearance, but once the shaking stopped, she hadn’t appeared. “Sweet Alexa…”
In a split second, the dresser from across the room flung at him and crashed into his body at full force. Once he was off his guard, Alexa flashed at my side and was in the process of picking me up when the dresser was thrown back at her.
Raising one had, she stopped it midair and sent it right back while standing to her feet, then she sent shards of glass from the broken windows at his body, penetrating his flesh and causing him to roar in pain and anger. Alexa hissed back before raising the large canopy bed and flinging it as if it were nothing, only I could smell her leaking blood and knew that she was weakening.
“I can barely move,” I thought.
“His venom is the same as what’s put into the guns. It should be fading now.”
I saw Alexa’s blurred figure crouching down for me before I felt her touch, but then, in an instant she was ripped away from me and I heard a crash.
“I see you still need to be put in your place,” Dr. Bardelos growled.
Alexa’s fear was there, but it didn’t stun her as it usually had. Not now that she was protecting me. I knew that it was the only reason she was here and wished that she would just save herself. Now that I saw what she was up against, running was okay. I didn’t mind running forever if it meant keeping him far away from her.
My vision slowly started to come through enough to find the Doctor holding Alexa in the air by her throat, but she wasn’t still and had lifted his massive body into the air with her telekinesis, only to slam him hard onto his back.
“Run, Faith!” Alexa yelled.
“She isn’t going anywhere!” Dr. Bardelos roared.
Flinging Alexa off of him, he slammed his hand through the floor and ripped up a large piece of wood, then charged over to me and raised the pointed end over me.
“Don’t!” Alexa yelled.
“Don’t worry. She’s too precious to kill.” I gasped when he thrust the wood towards my stomach but was able to roll over just in time for him to miss and cause the wooden piece to burst into splinters.
Frustrated, Dr. Bardelos grabbed me by the back of my neck and pulled me to my feet to face Alexa, then he turned me towards her with his claws at my neck. “You’re a lot stronger than I remember, Alexa,” he panted. “Stronger than when you actually fought back. I had gotten stronger too, as you can see.”
Alexa’s worried eyes were on me, the fight in her crumbling.
“I know I said that she was too precious to kill, but all I really need is her blood for experimentation.” He pressed his nails deep enough into my neck to draw blood.
“No.” She stepped forward, her eyes glittering with tears. “Don’t.”
“Then I advise you to stand down. I finally found you, and I will bring you back home with or without this girl. I actually can just make you create another one.”
I swallowed, hurt and fear climbing up my throat. “You have to run.”
“Not without you. I won’t do this again.”
“So,” Dr. Bardelos started. “What will it be?”
“I can still fight him,” Alexa thought.
“Run.”
“No, Faith. I won’t—”
Tears dropped from my eyes and onto my cheeks when I saw flashes of her curled into a ball, shivering as Dr. Bardelos’ massive figure walked towards her with chains dragging across the floor behind him. There was no way that I would let him hurt her again… “I love you.”
Before Alexa could react, I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my neck into his nails as hard as I possibly could, sending them straight though.
“Faith!” Alexa’s scream was loud, but her cry that followed was even louder.
Even as I dropped down to the floor while choking on my own blood an
d losing consciousness, I could still hear her, but as blood spurt from my mouth as my flesh tried to desperately repair itself, I lost sight of her.
Chapter Fourteen
Alexa
I was in the air, the wind spinning around me so furiously that it could be seen. I had lost Faith’s body through the blackness, but I could still somewhat see Dr. Bardelos trying to hang onto whatever he could get his hands on.
When Faith jammed his fingers through her throat, it hadn’t taken long for her warmth inside of me to go cold. I screamed her name before everything went black and the world around me began to spin, and once it sunk in that I’d lost her, something in me snapped.
And I was losing more control by the second.
If I didn’t stop soon, I didn’t know what would happen, but then again, I didn’t really care…
Someone suddenly grabbed me around my waist while another set of hands pulled at my legs. When I looked down, I couldn’t see who had grabbed me and was reluctant to stop destroying everything around me.
It wasn’t until a massive furry hand grabbed my free ankle and yanked me to the floor did I finally drop from the air.
I was dazed, but the moment that the storm had cleared, Argus charged at Dr. Bardelos and they both went flying across the room, roaring, punching, kicking, and biting.
“Grab Faith!” I heard Kahlien yell from beside me. “Come on, Alexa. We gotta go.”
“We need to get her to the healer, now!” Kastien yelled. “The witches are outside waiting for us.”
When I looked up, Kastien was holding Faith’s limp body, then he charged towards the window and leapt through.
Dr. Bardelos roared as he tried to charge towards them, but Argus tackled him to the floor, then looked up at us and roared.
Kahlien quickly helped me up, then the both of us sprinted to escape through the window. The doctor roared behind me.
“He won’t be able to stop him,” I panted.
“He doesn’t plan to.”
“Guys, come on!” Aramus yelled from within the woods. “More soldiers are coming!”
I glanced back at the house one last time before taking off into the woods with the other wolves. When we finally stopped, we were several miles away and with the group of witches we managed to save earlier.
“We need her healed. Her neck healed enough to keep her alive, but she won’t last for much longer,” Kastien explained and he laid her down over the dirt and leaves.
“I can heal her,” a dark-skinned woman with long locks said as she rushed over to Faith’s body.
Hope and fear collided inside of me as I watched the woman heal Faith’s neck. She rocked back and forth while chanting in a language I couldn’t understand with a golden glow illuminating from her palms. I wasn’t sure if she could do it at first, but as the color came back to Faith’s face, relief dropped me to my knees beside her.
“She needs blood,” the healer said.
I quickly bit into my wrist before placing it against Faith’s lips, then when her eyelids began to flutter open, I yanked her up almost a little too forcefully and guided her lips to my neck where she’d get the most out of feeding.
“I’m not dead?” Faith thought to me.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I held her close. “No. No, you’re alive,” I whispered back. When I looked up at the healer I nodded. “Thank you.”
The healer nodded back before glancing at the others. “We can catch the portal in time, but we must go now.”
Lor stepped forward. “Wait, what about Loren? We still haven’t found her.”
The wolves all glanced at each other, Lor seeming to be the only one who was confused.
“She was the reason we got ambushed, Lor,” Agron said as he walked towards us with Allie kicking in his arms. “Both times, and now here.”
Lor shook his head. “No, she’d never betray us.”
“She would if it meant avenging our pack,” Aramus sighed.
Lor growled. “No—”
“She told me herself, Lor,” Agron snapped. “She’s going to be made an M.O.D. Now, you guys need to go. I’m staying behind to meet Argus. We’ll be at the portal tomorrow. He got away but he’s wounded and hiding now. I need to get to him.”
Lor growled before punching a tree and causing splinters of wood to fly everywhere.
Faith gently pulled away from my neck before looking up at me through dazed eyes. “You’re safe.” A moment later, they rolled back and she passed out in my arms.
Gently, I picked her up and cradled her close.
“We will have the portal open for you two tomorrow, but we have to get through first. Witches can only hold it open for so long, even as a group,” the healer warned.
“Let’s go then,” Aramus said.
Agron nodded before putting Allie down, hugging his brothers, and placing a kiss on my forehead, then he shifted into a wolf and ran off.
The rest of us followed the small group of young and old witches.
“Where does this portal lead to?” Kastien asked as we followed them downhill towards a small cave.
The middle-aged healer looked over her shoulder at Kastien with a smirk. “Where we come from, child. New Orleans.”
I sighed, thinking of how that was one of the last places I ever wanted to visit, but anywhere was safer than here, even when I knew there was more danger ahead.
DEAR READERS
Thank you so much for reading Frostbitten: Book Three of The Ice Rose Series! If you liked what you read, please leave a review on amazon. Also, if you’re interested in reading the final book in the series, then visit DH Bookstore and subscribe. There, you will be receiving the most recent updates of my upcoming short-stories, free giveaways, and also get the latest exclusive news. Thank you again for reading! Be sure to check out my other books!
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READY FOR A NEW SERIES?
Krystal Blue
The Blue Moon Series, Book One
As far as Crystal Knew, she was just a normal girl. Sure, there were some instances where she wondered if she were something more than human, but what more could she be other than a foster kid from Nevada? There are no such things as vampires and witches...right?
After abruptly leaving home to study Zoology in California, Crystal runs into Alveya Tera, a beautiful, and, yet, dangerous member of the mysterious Josbryn family. After recovering from an almost fatal car accident she soon learns that there are definitely more than just animals and humans in the world. She also learns that the beast her mother died protecting her from wasn't just a part of her imagination.
Neither was her unusual appetite for meat.
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About the Author
Destiny Hawkins is a multi-genre author with a dark imagination and a love for magic.
She enjoys cooking, running, swimming, listening to music, reading, and of course watching anime filled with fantasy! Her favorite genres to read and work in are Fantasy, LGBT, Paranormal, Romance, Dystopian, Sci-fi, and young adult. After three years of writing she has published almost 20 books and she has many more coming!
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
>
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Frostbitten 3 Page 8
